Galilee
large region mainly located in northern Israel
Galilee (; Hebrew: הַגָּלִיל, romanized: hag-Gālīl; Ancient Greek: Galilaia, lit. 'Γαλιλαία'; Latin: Galilaea; Arabic: الجليل, romanized: al-Jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (הגליל העליון, hag-Galil ha-ʿElyon; الجليل الأعلى, al-Jalīl al-Aʿlā) and the Lower Galilee (הגליל התחתון, hag-Galil hat-Taḥton; الجليل الأسفل, al-Jalīl al-Asfal). Other sub-regions are the Western Galilee and the Galilee Panhandle.
Galilee encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel–Mount Gilboa ridge and south of the east–west section of the Litani River. It extends from the Israeli coastal plain and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea with Acre in the west, to the Jordan Valley to the east; and from the Litani in the north plus a piece bordering on the Golan Heights to Dan at the base of Mount Hermon in the northeast, to Mount Carmel and Mount Gilboa in the south.
In some definitions, it may include the plains of the Jezreel Valley north of Jenin and the Beit She'an Valley, the Sea of Galilee, and the Hula Valley.
Etymology
The Galilee is first mentioned in Ancient Egyptian inscriptions from the 15th century BC, chronicling the military campaigns led by Tuthmosis III against Canaanite kings in the region. The Egyptian hieroglyphs can either be read as GLL, or the same as in Akkadian: GRR, garāru, meaning 'roll'.
The region's name in Biblical Hebrew: גָּלִיל, romanized: gālíl, means 'district' or 'circle'. The form used in the Hebrew Bible's Isaiah 8:23 (Isaiah 9:1 in the Christian Old Testament) is in the construct state, leading to Hebrew: גְּלִיל הַגּוֹיִם, romanized: gəlil haggóyim "Galilee of the nations", which refers to gentiles who settled there at the time the book was written, either by their own volition or as a result of the resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The region is also referred to as the "land of Naphtali" or "country of Naphtali", in 2 Kings 15:29, after the eponymous tribe of Israel.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Galilee” as large region mainly located in northern Israel. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q83241. VIAF identifies the subject as 172712077. The Library of Congress control number is sh85052797. Authority coordinates are 33.000, 35.300. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Galilee” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.